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Background Native pinyon (Pinus spp.) and juniper (Juniperus spp.) trees are expanding into shrubland communities across the Western United States. These trees often outcompete with native sagebrush (Artemisia spp.) associated species, resulting in…
Author(s): Claire Williams, Lisa M. Ellsworth, Eva K. Strand, Matthew C. Reeves, Scott E. Shaff, Karen C. Short, Jeanne C. Chambers, Beth A. Newingham, Claire Tortorelli
Year Published:

Background: Maximizing the effectiveness of fuel treatments at landscape scales is a key research and management need given the inability to treat all areas at risk from wildfire. We synthesized information from case studies that documented the…
Author(s): Alexandra K. Urza, Brice B. Hanberry, Theresa B. Jain
Year Published:

Restoration goals in fire-prone conifer forests include mitigating fire hazard while restoring forest structural components linked to disturbance resilience and ecological function. Restoration of overstory spatial pattern in forests often falls…
Author(s): Jeffery B. Cannon, Katarina J. Warnick, Spencer Elliott, Jennifer S. Briggs
Year Published:

Harold Biswell first learned about the benefits of prescribed fire in forest management when he was a Forest Service researcher in Georgia, USA. After he accepted a professorship in the School of Forestry at the University of California, Berkeley,…
Author(s): Scott L. Stephens, Jan W. van Wagtendonk, James K. Agee, Ronald H. Wakimoto
Year Published:

After a more than a century of fighting to keep fire out of forests, reintroducing it is now an important management goal. Yet changes over the past century have left prescribed burning with a big job to do. Development, wildfire suppression, rising…
Author(s): Sylvia Kantor, Becky K. Kerns, Michelle A. Day
Year Published:

In the western United States, restoration of forests with historically frequent, low‐severity fire regimes often includes fuel reduction that reestablish open, early‐seral conditions while reducing fuel continuity and loading. Between 2001 and 2016…
Author(s): Justin S. Crotteau, Christopher R. Keyes, Sharon M. Hood, Andrew J. Larson
Year Published:

We assessed plant community succession following prescribed fire on ungrazed Wyoming big sagebrush steppe, eastern Oregon. Treatments were burned (Burn; September and October, 2002) and unburned (Control) sagebrush steppe. Herbaceous yield,…
Author(s): Jonathan D. Bates, Chad S. Boyd, Kirk W. Davies
Year Published:

Accumulating data indicate the importance of fire in rangeland systems. Mowing is a common management technique sometimes considered a surrogate for fire. However, direct comparisons of fire and mowing effects are limited. Our objective was to…
Author(s): Lance T. Vermeire, Dustin J. Strong, Emily A. Gates, Clayton B. Marlow, Richard C. Waterman
Year Published:

Background: Surface fuel loadings are some of the most important factors contributing to fire intensity and fire spread. In old-growth forests where fire has been long excluded, surface fuel loadings can be high and can include woody debris ≥100 cm…
Author(s): C. Alina Cansler, Mark E. Swanson, Tucker J. Furniss, Andrew J. Larson, James A. Lutz
Year Published:

Background: Evaluating fuel treatment effectiveness is challenging when managing a landscape for diverse ecological, social, and economic values. We used a Participatory Geographic Information System (PGIS) to understand Confederated Colville Tribal…
Author(s): Monique D. Wynecoop, Penelope Morgan, Eva K. Strand, Fernando Sanchez-Trigueros
Year Published:

To increase ecosystem resiliency, and achieve the desired future condition of stands with large tree retention and low fuel loads, federal agencies have actively implemented a large number of fuel reduction and forest restoration projects in low-…
Author(s): Jane E. Smith, Daniel L. Luoma, Benjamin T. N. Hart
Year Published:

This project had three objectives. The first objective was to identify variation in discrimination of Δ13C and intrinsic water use efficiency (iWUE) in Ponderosa pine (Pinus ponderosa) tree rings from 1800 to 2012 at two Fire and Fire Surrogate…
Author(s): Alan H. Taylor, Soumaya Belmecheri, Lucas B. Harris
Year Published:

This project quantifies the effects of fuel treatments and previously burned areas on daily fire management costs, as well as summarizes recent encounter rates between fuel treatments and wildland fires across the conterminous United States. Using…
Author(s): Helen T. Naughton, Kevin M. Barnett
Year Published:

Fire is an important disturbance in riparian systems—consuming vegetation; increasing light; creating snags and debris flows; altering habitat structure; and affecting stream conditions, erosion, and hydrology. For many years, land managers have…
Author(s): Josh McDaniel
Year Published:

Mixed conifer forests of western North America are challenging for fire management, as historical fire regimes were highly variable in severity, timing, and spatial extent. Complex fire histories combined with site factors and other disturbances,…
Author(s): Scott R. Abella, Judith D. Springer
Year Published:

Forests that historically burned in mixed-severity fire regimes prove difficult to manage, especially when they border homes and prized recreation areas. This management challenge was the focus of the Fuels Reduction and Restoration in Mixed-Conifer…
Author(s): Corey L. Gucker
Year Published:

The scientific basis for restoration of fire-excluded western larch/mixed-conifer forests is not as well developed as that for dry fire-frequent forests. We compared the effects of wildfire and restoration (combined thinning and prescribed fire) in…
Author(s): Taylor Hopkins, Andrew J. Larson, R. Travis Belote
Year Published:

Reference conditions describe attributes of ecosystem structure, composition, and function and are used to inform ecological restoration efforts. Reference condition information on tree spatial patterns that occurred prior to wide-spread fire…
Author(s): Kyle Rodman, Andrew Sanchez Meador
Year Published:

A century of fire suppression has created unnaturally dense stands in many western North American forests, and silviculture treatments are being increasingly used to reduce fuels to mitigate wildfire hazards and manage insect infestations. Thinning…
Author(s): Jennifer L. Birdsall, Ward W. McCaughey, Justin B. Runyon
Year Published:

We examined the effects of three early season (spring) prescribed fires on burn severity patterns of summer wildfires that occurred 1-3 years post-treatment in a mixed conifer forest in central Idaho. Wildfire and prescribed fire burn severities…
Author(s): Robert S. Arkle, David S. Pilliod, Justin L. Welty
Year Published: